Disclaimer: I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard Entertainment does.

A VERY important notice. As of the 23rd I am going to a camp for 2 weeks. I will put the camp status on my profile, and until I take that down I am not back. During my stay I will not have any internet, so no updates for the next 2 weeks. Sorry.

Like always, thanks to Dusty the Umbravita for beta-ing.

I stood up when I heard my name. Verthelion looked right up at me, and me right at him. His eyes moved too and fro across me, probably unable to take in the fact that I wasn't dead. Finally, he closed his eyes again. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

I smiled, even though he couldn't see it. "No, you're not dead. Neither am I. I managed to save you from Ysera." I decided not to tell him about the trip with the Bronze. He didn't need to worry about that.

His eyes opened, and he craned his head up to get a better look at me. "You're... not dead?"

I shook my head. "No, and neither are you."

Then next thing I knew I'm on my back with my wings helplessly out to the sides, my forelegs in the air, and my head on its side, with an angry-looking Verthelion pinning me to the ground. I stiffened in fear, remembering Verthelion with glowing red eyes while the Nightmare Elixir had control of my mind. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? It's been MONTHS! I thought you were dead!" He flared his wings, making him look bigger than he was. Then he deflated. He bent down and nuzzled my head. "I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too. Now please, get off of me!"

He obeyed, but kept looking at me like I was a big, juicy stag. I twisted around and stood up. "Where have you been? I thought, everyone thought you were dead!" Suddenly he pressed his head right next to me. "Tell me everything."

I smiled as he pulled his head away and sat down. I imitated him, and sat right next to him. "Where should I start?"

"Start here. How the hells are you alive? I saw Lirastrasza's fireball crash right into you! How did you survive?"

I did explain it to him. I told him how a mortal outside the cult saved me, much to his surprise. I told him how Samuel and Amanthe became my friends in Stormwind and - didn't - betray me, how I found out his location through Cho'gall's registry, and finally, how I came to find him in Hyjal. He barely believed that mortals outside of the cult knew about what I was and didn't betray me, but the fact that I was alive infront of him persuaded him. I vaguely wondered what had happened to Ellemayne and her friends. They probably went back to their own time, and Chronormu/Chromie was mysterious enough to have spied on me saving Verthelion and told them. I didn't tell Verthelion about the Infinite; he didn't need to worry about that. I had a feeling they wouldn't trouble us again.

I had finished I was lifted out of my depressed mood that resulted from watching Amanthe die and being able to do nothing to stop it - and then I was depressed again. "There's something I want to talk to you about."

"What is it?" There was a hint of worry and panic in his voice, but to this day I can't pinpoint the origin.

"Alright. This is pretty heavy. Do you remember any voice when you were in your egg?"

Verthelion froze for a few seconds. "I do, why?"

"What did they tell you?"

"They told me about how corrupt the red flight is, how the mortals are evil."

I lowered my head. "That's the problem, Verthelion. You see, I heard the same voices. Everyone in our flight did."

"I know that, why are you telling me this?"

"Because the voices, they lied. The red flight isn't corrupt. The mortals aren't all evil, it's only the ones in the cult who are."

Verthelion hesitated. "What," he hissed. " how do you know this?"

"Verthelion, you're a natural born, but I'm a first born. My brood-mother was a red wyrm. I was taken away from her while I was still in my egg, and you know what? The voices told me that she abandoned me. If it lied about that, what else might it have lied about?"

He paused. "What, but, no. You don't know, that might have been the only thing they lied about. Everything else might still have been true! And how do you know you were taken?"

"I remembered it. I remember hearing her fight the cultists. If she were to abandon me, then why would she do that? Also, while I was in Stormwind I had a mortal friend, she was outside the cult." My heart clenched talking about Amanthe. "She knew I was a twilight drake, but still didn't do anything to betray me. What do you think about that? Didn't the voices say the mortals not in the cult would try to kill us at any opportunity?"

He shook his head. "No! No, they didn't! Valiona told us that, and she was right!" He turned his head sideways. "How is Valiona, by the way?"

I looked at the ground as I teared up. "She's dead."

"See, this just reinforces how the mortals are evil! Remember Hemeriona? They tore her wings open with artillery, and when they found her they put a sword in her throat."

"It's not them who are evil, don't tell me you wouldn't have killed them," I snapped. "It's US! We're the evil ones!"

This caught Verthelion off guard. He shifted his head around, clearly trying to process this information. Please, let him believe me, I kept thinking. He looked at me. "I-"

"Yes. Me too. As long as we're on Deathwing's side, we're on the evil side."

"But Deathwing is doing the job of the red flight for them, how could his side be the evil one? Wipe out the mortals and kill a thousand -"

" - Or let them stay alive and kill millions over time," I finished for him. "But that's not the job of the Red flight, to prevent death. It's their job to keep life going. And Deathwing's goals are right against that. Verthelion, do you really think that, if he wins, Deathwing will become sane? That he won't raze the world and kill everything edible, resulting in our deaths?"

"Selriona, you're asking me to betray Deathwing! This goes against everything I've ever seen."

I sighed. This was slow going. "Verthelion, look at it this way. If Deathwing wins, everyone will die. No question. He'll kill everything. If Deathwing dies, yes, we'll probably still die, but at least everyone else will live!"

I saw him struggling within himself. I had to push him on to the right side. "Please, Verthelion..."

Finally he sighed. "Alright. I'll trust you on this." A tense silence passed between us. "So... now what?"

"Now, we leave here as soon as possible. Ysera might come hunt us down, and that'll be it." Ysera had come here originally, and who was to say she wouldn't come again? "So, where do you think we should go?"

Verthelion considered this for a moment. "Our cave, the one near the Bastion. Atleast until we're old enough to become adults. Two drakes, we won't be able to change much of anything. We won't be strong enough. But if we become fully grown, we'll be stronger, not to mention having our magic unleashed. Then we'll be able to have actual influence."

I nodded in agreement. "Alright, so, how do we get there?" I asked. "Because I am not flying all the way to the Eastern Kingdoms"

"Hmm... we can fly to Teldrassil, I hear there's a boat there that leads to Stormwind, and we can use, ugh, mortal forms to get inside, and from Stormwind it's easy to get to our cave in the Highlands."

"I like that plan, only one problem."

"And what would that be?"

"I'm a criminal in Stormwind."

Verthelion laughed. "Oh, there's a shocker." He nudged me with a wing. "But anyway, you can just use another form, right?"

I nodded. "That's right," I said, somewhat skeptical. "But then there's the fact that you haven't ever used a mortal form."

"How do you know? It's been a few months," His voice wavered when he spoke about how long I was gone. "I could have used a mortal form since then."

"Have you?"

He shoved me with his wing. "Oh shut up." He pressed his head to mine again. "I missed you so much."

I laughed. "You've mentioned. Now let's get going before Ysera shows up."

"Right." He walked out of the canyon with me right behind him. We both took wing and started to soar around the mountain, heading north-west according to my internal compass. Within minutes we passed out of sight of Sulfuron Keep, and were flying around the side of the mountain, trees barely grazing the bottom of our paws. A layer of clouds enveloped the mountain, lower down. I got a sinister smirk on my face.

"Verthelion!"

"Yes?"

"Race you to Felwood!" I sped up and shot through the sky. I heard Verthelion sigh in annoyance and speed up behind me. I dove under the clouds and burst back up, streaming them after me. I looked back at Verthelion, only to not find him. I stopped and looked around, trying to figure out where he was. I got my answer when he burst through the clouds underneath me, smashed into me, and made me lose my balance for a few seconds, before racing ahead of me. I grinned. Oh, this would be fun. I pushed myself as fast as I could, and slowly but surely, I gained air on him. I grabbed his tail, making him jerk in shock. That was all the opening I needed to take the lead and dive under the clouds with Verthelion right behind me. The wind screamed past me, like a banshee's wail. Green mist washed over us, making me cough. I looked back at Verthelion as I slowed to a hover.

"I win."

He rose and smacked me with a wing, catching himself as he descended to my height. "Surprise, surprise. I see being in a mortal form for several months didn't diminish your skill."

I chuckled. "You know that I've always loved to fly," I said. I looked at the ground below us. A green puddle of a lake was nearby, with ooze dripping along it. I figured it was as good a place as any. "Alright, let's practice your mortal form." We set down on the ground, right next to the tainted lake. The trees of Felwood scared me. They were hollowed out and dripped with green slime. They looked like faces, souls in eternal torment bound to trees. Given the region's history with demonic corruption, I wouldn't be too surprised if that was the case. "Okay. Try a human form, those are easiest." I shifted to my mortal form in a heartbeat.

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Well, try to bring magic through your body. Imagine energy molding yourself into a human." Verthelion closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, and out. Violet energy flickered along his scales. He discolored and shrunk, but he let out a breath and reformed. "Try again." I got it on my first try. Was it really so difficult?

Verthelion began to compress again. His horns split again and again, his scales changed color, with some of them detaching from his body. He shrunk smaller and smaller as he was forced to his hind legs... and returned to his true form again. "How did you do it so fast? This is absurdly difficult."

I shrugged. "I've done it a lot of times, but I still got it on my first try." I smirked. "Are you saying you're bad at shapeshifting?"

He growled at me, before launching a fireball at me I only barely managed to twist myself away from. "Easy, easy! I'm a human right now!"

"Which makes it so much easier for me to do this," he said with forced lack of emotion. He pounced at me, pinning me to the ground. "Admit defeat, mortal! You've lost."

I rolled my eyes. "Honestly, Verthelion? Seriously, you need to learn to use a mortal form so we can use the boat to Stormwind, not to mention get out of the city in the first place!"

"Alright then. Shapeshift your way out of this one, and I'll go back to it."

I smiled. Already an idea was forming in my brain. "Oh, my pleasure." I contracted my form. The magic was stubborn and refused to mold my body, but I forced it through myself. In a moment I had become a gnome, with Verthelion's paws in the dirt to either side of me. I rolled to the side and jumped up over him(He looked enormous from that perspective.) and landed on his back.

He thrashed his head around. "What are you doing?" I let my illusion dissipate entirely, and the sudden weight forced him to the ground.

I placed my claws on either side of his neck. "So, what were you saying about admitting defeat?"

He groaned. "Alright, alright. I'll shapeshift, just get off of me!" I obeyed him, and sat down on my haunches as I watched him struggle with the magic. I swept my tail from side to side as the purple magic pulsated around him, like it were trying to crush him into a smaller space. Slowly but surely, Verthelion did contract into a human form. His hair was dark and almost violet like mine, and he wore purple robes akin to those worn in the cult. He stumbled, trying to get his balance.

I shifted to my human form and walked up next to him. "It's tricky at first. You need to keep walking, eventually your brain will pick up how often it needs to balance you. Here's a hint: A lot."

"Thanks for the warning," He grumbled, and took a shaky step. He started to fall, but caught himself on his hands, slowly walking his legs forward. He threw his body back, but he put too much force into it and fell backwards onto the dead soil.

I took pity on him and helped him to his feet. "It's going to take practice. I wasn't able to use stairs for quite a while."

Verthelion let go of my hand and took a few shaky steps forward. "Alright, I've got this under control. I just need to balance myself, and all is well." He took more steps, growing more confident with each one.

I nodded and walked in front of him. "Good. Now, there are a few things that mortals do, or rather, don't do. For some reason they make big deals out of their bodily functions, from mating to waste excretion."

"Why would they -"

"I honestly do not know, but they do. So if we come into contact with any, just, um, don't mention bodily functions."

"Alright, understood. Now, let's keep going."

He started to shimmer, but I stopped him. "Oh no you don't. You're practicing walking. I had to learn it, and now so are you." He sighed, but stopped releasing his illusion. I walked forward, with Verthelion stumbling behind me. The region known as Felwood wasn't long from east to west, and luckily that was where we were going. In no time we had happened across a road, covered in the same green slime that was in every tree. The trees themselves had a habit of imbedding sinister thoughts in my mind. They all seemed to be looking at me. Each 'face' was pointed at us as we came upon them. It took all I had not to whimper in fear, but I was certain Verthelion was picking up on my fear; I felt his radiate from him in tidal waves. The small hairs on my skin stood straight up, pulling the skin they were attached to with them and creating goosebumps. I sensed something ahead of me instinctively, and I could tell Verthelion did as well. One tree in front of us, a wide, old tree, was 'facing' away from us.

From around it, something emerged.

It was vaguely kaldorei, but in addition to its ears, long horns stretched behind his head. Instead of clothing, thick orange fur covered his legs, arms and shoulders. The hands were misshapen and enlarged, with claws on the end. A tail stretched behind him, and the feet were replaced with cloven hooves. Before either of us could react he thrust his hands out. A web of shadow energy flew out and ensnared us. I felt my fire suppress within my body, the shadow magic keeping me immobilized. The satyr laughed. When he stopped, he pulled his outstretched hand in, pulling me and Verthelion into the air and next to him.

"Ah, fresh lambs to sacrifice. It's been such a long, long time since we've had fresh meat in this region. Kil'jaeden will be pleased..." He started walking away, bringing us with him like fish in a net. We could have easily reverted to our true forms and escaped; If the size increase didn't overtax the spell itself, our natural resistance to dark magic would have dispersed it. But Verthelion shot me a look that very clearly said, Play along, let's see what he's up to. I wanted to ask him why he wanted to do that, but I thought against it. He trusted me with leaving Deathwing's side. I trusted him with that.

The satyr walked up to a tree with a tunnel carved into it that descended into the bowels of the earth. He led us down through the ensnaring magic, Verthelion in front of me. Torches lit up the space every here and there, and soon the tunnel opened up into a wide cave. Felhounds slightly smaller than Mariel's were snuffling around in corners. The ground went up above the floor, forming a sort of walkway over it. In the middle of the walkway was a stone altar with red engravings. I could smell them; they were made of blood. Over in the corner were the mangled bones of a corpse long eaten, probably by the felhounds. The satyr walked over to a wall and placed his hands on it. He chanted some words under his breath and pulled out a dagger from the earth, a simple, crude dagger. He flicked his hand over to the altar, and Verthelion levitated over above it. With another hand motion I was suspended over the floor. He lowered Verthelion onto the altar and prepared his dagger.

"Let this sacrifice serve as testament to the-"

"Now, Selriona!" Both of us unleashed our true forms at once. The magical spell keeping us contained flexed as it tried to compensate for our increased size, but the magical tendrils were sucked back into the satyr's clawed, malformed hands. Verthelion's suddenly increased size threw the dagger out of his hand to the felhounds below. The satyr gasped and tried to run for the exit, but I cut him off with a flame breath.

He jumped across to the other side of the chamber, an impossible distance, yet he crossed it anyway. "Feed, my pets! There's plenty for you all!" The felhounds howled and began to run up the ramps leading up to us, but Verthelion let out a wide spray of fire that caught half of them instantly. They ignited and burned to ashes, dispersing into shadows as the magic binding them to the physical world came undone. I incinerated the other half in similar fashion, but one ducked safely under the walkway. Something warm splashed against my head, and I looked up to see the satyr charging up a spell. He launched a skull at me, a laughing, dark skull with a trail of shadows behind it. It crashed into my head and exploded like it were made of water, but otherwise the shadowbolt did nothing to harm me.

The satyr growled. "Resistant? Very well... BURN!" A wave of flame exploded from the satyr in all directions, catching the one remaining felhound just as it came up the ramp next to its master. Both Verthelion and I were forced to the far end of the chamber as the satyr channeled an inferno. Flames sparked along his fur, but didn't seem to cause him any harm. Smoke burned my eyes and flame licked my scales, just far enough away. We both launched fireballs at him, with noticeable results. They rippled along his skin, probably because of a protective enchantment. We fired more, each one diminishing his defenses, until they finally fell. The satyr exploded into a fireball from his own spell. He screamed and thrashed about, but in moments he was a charred husk. Luckily the chamber was mostly stone, so the flames from his spell didn't spread. Once it was over, I shifted to my mortal form and knelt next to the ashes. Something in the corner caught my eye, in the pile of bones. A flash of gold. I walked over to the bones. Whoever they were, a letter was inside their ribcage. I pulled it out and broke open the golden seal, which was weakened through time and the surroundings. The letter was, thankfully, written in Common, which I could read to a certain extent.

We have tracked the Legion's agents to a cavern. We do not know what they want, but our leading paladin Commander Dawnbreaker sensed a depression in the light at the cavern's estimated location. We believed there to be a powerful force of darkness, but Dawnbreaker sensed that it had been moved to a location in Darkshore. We are preparing to investigate the caverns, but after the attack of the corrupted wildlife last week, Dawnbreaker fears that we lack the required manpower to push into the cavern, as he senses a powerful satyr there. On his behalf I request reinforcements. I have sent this messenger to send this letter, as we siege the cavern. We might not be able to enter it without having a deathwish, but we can contain it.

-Judias Stemotar

I walked up the ramp to Verthelion, who was still in his true form. I held up the letter to him. "What do you think of this?"

He looked at the letter for a few seconds, reading it. "Well, clearly the messenger was caught. But what do you think that the powerful force of darkness would be? Further on, who were the mortals looking for it, and who were they asking for reinforcements?"

I shifted to my true form and shook my head. "I don't know. But this sounds like something worth looking into. And they assume it's in Darkshore, which is where we're headed in the first place."

"Why should we? It's none of our business, and what if the Legion already moved this, whatever it is?"

"Seeing as how the Legion wants to kill everything, I'd say it is our business, and to find it, well, I have an idea." I brought magic up through me. It was painfully difficult. The magic swirled into a spherical violet mist, while my mind rearranged runes in the appropriate shapes to open a portal. I took a deep breath from exhaustion, and stepped into the twilight realm.

I waited there for a few seconds before Verthelion joined me. "How hard was that?"

"You have no idea. Let's look around for anything that seems out of place." We both started to walk around the twilight realm, looking for anything curious. I shifted to my mortal form and gestured for Verthelion to follow me up the narrow spiral passage up. He joined me in his human form after a few failed tries. Outside I found a black line, as thick as a rope. It led north, into Darkshore. I released my illusion. "I think this is it. Let's follow it, see where it goes."

My mate also dispersed the magic holding him in a human form. "Odd. I never knew we could see corruption in the twilight realm."

"Seems we can. We follow this, we arrive at whatever's causing it. Even if we can't kill it, we'll know what it is and we can escape into the twilight realm. Knowledge is power, after all."

He considered this, and nodded. Then he shot off after the thin rope.

I smiled. Hadn't he learned by now? He couldn't beat me in flight. In no time I had caught up to him, moving incredibly fast with the energy given to me by the twilight realm. As we flew onward, I felt a little ripple in the back of my mind as the portal I had created closed. We were moving so fast that in no time, Felwood had fallen behind us and the countless rivulets of Darkshore made their appearance as the thread of shadow along the ground grew thicker and thicker. Darkshore had no trees to us, but that was because they were all in the physical plane. The black fog veered sharply to the right, and I attempted to turn after it... only to have Verthelion crash into me and send us both rolling along the ground into a tributary.

Water washed over my head and panic seized my heart. I launched myself up, kicking my legs and using my wings to stay above water. Moments later Verthelion broke out next to me. The water thrashed around in rapids, tossing us around helplessly. It was only the energy from the twilight realm that gave us that strength to stay afloat and not drown. I tried to claw up the sides, but the rapids forced me back down. I came up next to a rock and the water pulled me down with incredible force. I submerged for a few terrifying seconds before I burst back up, gasping and taking deep gulps of precious air. I latched onto the rock, my amplified strength preventing me from being washed away. Behind me, Verthelion was pulled further and further away by the current.

"A little help here?" He called after me.

I launched after him, flying over to him. He grabbed onto a rock, the sudden lack of motion making the water push up around him. "Verthelion! Mortal form, I'll be able to pull you out!" He grimaced, but slowly energy started to flow around him. His grasp on the rock slackened as he returned to his mortal form, not knowing how to hold on. The current swept him away, but not before I could grab him in my claws and hoist him out of the water onto the riverbed, where he released his illusion. We both shook the water off ourselves.

"That was close." I said. "Alright, now, where's the trail?"

We both looked around for a few seconds before Verthelion faced a direction. "That way, I think. Let's go" We both took to the air, and that time I flew next to Verthelion, not bothering to pass him. I'd almost lost him again. The black fog led us along a complex path along the ground; evidently the Legion had tried to make it hard to follow. Soon we reached a place where the fog abruptly stopped, with several red dots around. On closer inspection I saw that the trail simply went underground, and soon we were both walking through a cave. There was nothing alive in the cave, but that was very likely due to us being in a different plane of existence. We followed the trail of black to a large chamber, one that could not have been made naturally.

The room was a perfect cylinder, with eight green crystals floating around the edge in a perfect circle. The room was made of black metal, twisted with spikes on it, outlined with green. The crystals had glowing red eyes in them, looking right at me. I could see red light pulsing within them, and the red light was pulled out of each of the crystals into a filament and sucked into the middle, turning black halfway into the middle. Each of the streams pooled into a large black shape in the middle, towering maybe three meters tall and one across, too blurred for me to make out any detail. Verthelion and I both looked at the shape in the middle in awe.

Verthelion was the first to swallow the lump in his throat. "Well, let's see what it is?"

My voice shook. "Sure. I'll open a portal. We'll go through, and if it's too powerful, we get back into the twilight realm."

I took a deep breath. "Right. Get out, see what it is, get back in. Destroy it if we can." I created the portal back into the physical realm. The moment it stabilized I felt suction coming from the other end. "Well, get ready." Verthelion stepped infront of me and jumped through the portal, with me right behind him.

The tracts of light that I saw in the twilight realm dispersed the moment reality came back to me. The eight crystals were glowing, but very dimly, their energies being drained. Shadow magic flowed out of each one into a central vortex, a cloud of fog being sucked into a central construct. Wind whistled around me, trying to pull me in. The construct itself was one of the most amazing and depressing things I had ever seen.

At first I thought that it was an illusion, because there was nothing holding it together. But as I looked closer, I saw that this was an entity of pure shadow magic. The top was a half-circle with a hole in it, much like a protractor I had seen in one of the shops in Stormwind. It was connected to a series of other dark structures, runes that had carved places into it that held other coils of magical energy, looking like eyes. It spun around slowly, shadow plates whirling around a central core that looked almost like a key. Light shone around this central core, but instead of coming out of it, the light was being sucked in, and concentrated into a thicker medium as it got closer. The power from the crystals flowed into the core. Chimes filled the air, slow and melancholy. I sensed a tragedy with this creature; it wasn't supposed to be like this.

A weight seemed to constrict around my lungs. I felt the wind increase in its intensity. The 'eyes' of the magical construct whirled around to look at me. Filaments of shadow energy arced out of the central core and into both me and Verthelion, before arcing between the two of us. A tidal wave of emotion smashed its way into my mind, coming from the creature. Regret. Sorrow. Fear. Good will. Helplessness. I didn't understand it. How could something as clearly powerful as it was be helpless? I flinched under the intensity of the shadow lightning, which grew thicker each time it arced into us, and winced under the vortex's pull.

"We need to get out of here," I yelled to Verthelion. I forced myself back towards the portal. Whatever it was, it was too powerful for us. Verthelion launched himself at the portal at the same time I did, but I simply froze, caught in a shell of shadow energy. The magic lifted me and turned me around to face the vortex. The shadow lightning arced harmlessly across the shell I was trapped in.

Another blast of telepathy assaulted my mind. I saw Seradane, with a Twilight dragon sitting on the ramp, sealing off the portal. He had scars along his back, and must've been transferred from Deepholme or someplace else; he wasn't at all familiar. I felt understanding and knowledge of my intentions. I saw a vision in my mind of the same construct, but glowing brightly instead of being dark, light radiating from its core instead of being drawn in. Demons came into the scene and corrupted the construct, drained its light and made it into what it was. The telepathy reduced itself to words. I know what you are. I know who you are. I know you are freed from the tricks. I winced at the power behind those thoughts. This construct could destroy me with a single twist of its plates, turn me to ashes with a thought. I have been corrupted and paraded around by the Legion, fed shadow magic to deepen my darkened state so that they may turn me into a weapon.

Verthelion. Where was he? I have made the portal one way. Now, you need to see this, to understand.

I saw another vision, this one of the construct far darker than now. Dark mist swirled about its form. Draenei-like demons with red skin channeled more shadow energy into it, and the being flickered, shadows spreading down its form. It flashed brightly, the largest of its form being destroyed save for the top. A creature of darkness formed, a vortex of unstoppable strength. Its eyes glowed with raw power, and with a single attack it annihilated all of the demons and consumed their energies for itself. I give you this knowledge so that you may, once Deathwing's fall has come to pass, free me from the demons and place me under control so that I may regenerate. Deal with the World-breaker first. I can hold out for years yet. Even so, it takes nearly all my power to prevent my instability from killing you. I will release you now. Go back to your plane of existence, and leave before you die. Remember the one of your kind that I showed you. When the time comes for you to mature, he is who you shall go to. He is who shall guide you to what you must do after. The adult flashed through my mind again, but this time Verthelion and I were on the ground around him, a heavy fog of shadow energy around us as we shifted and grew. The shell of shadow energy flickered and dispersed, exposing me once again to the powerful - even with my resistance to it - shadow lightning, not to mention the pull of the vortex. I pulled myself over to the portal and stumbled inside, burning on the inside from the magical onslaught. The portal wavered and closed of its own accord.

Verthelion leapt at me at me and nudged my face. "Are you alright? I couldn't get through, the portal wouldn't let me! I don't think I could stand to lose you twice." I groaned, and in spite of the strength acquired from the twilight realm, passed out.

In my dream I was a whelp. I flapped forward a single meter and became a drake. I took another step forward and was fully grown. The environment around me sprung into existence as I searched for it. I was in a deep, lush jungle. Plants grew all around me, birds hummed in the air, completely oblivious to me. I wondered why, not being lucid. I took several massive steps forward to a lake and looked down into it. I had no reflection. For some reason this made me furious. I swiped my tail, knocking down several trees. I wanted to leave that place and go someplace meaningful. My dream complied and placed me in the place Valiona had watched over me. I contracted back into a drake, suddenly aware of the dream being a dream. A red drake settled down next to me, and I nearly had heart failure.

"YOU!" I jumped away from Nalestrasza, who simply looked at me with dull eyes.

She bared her fangs. "Yes, me." She sighed, looking at the ground. "I've never been the same since you destroyed my consciousness, you know. I'm not self-aware anymore."

"You sure are talking like you are!" I said, remaining suspicious.

"That's because you think I will. Now I'm nothing more than a projection of your mind. Such a shame."

"What do you want, then?"

"I want to talk to you about the construct you just saw." A replica of the living shadow energy formed infront of me. "That thing used to be a being of good. It was tainted by the demons and darkened, somehow. If they continue, it will become a being of unparalleled power." The construct became the void creature that it had shown me in its vision. "The Legion will not be able to contain it. Its power will grow at an almost unstoppable rate."

"If you're only a projection of my mind, then how do you know all this?"

Nalestrasza scoffed. "I know whatever you do. Tell me, did you not sense the power in it? Did the runes making up the construct not make some glimmer of sense to you?"

"Well, yes," I hesitantly said. "But that doesn't explain why you know it."

"Actually it does. Where do you think your mind got the power to give me self-awareness? To craft entire worlds in your dream, while you still stay more or less as smart as you are in waking?"

"Well..."

"Your mind is far more powerful than you give it credit. Your subconscious made the connection roughly two seconds before you passed out."

"Oh. So, continue with the doomsday thing?" The void creature infront of me threw its hands up before letting them fall back down. It looked left, then right, then back at us.

"Well, seeing how fast the construct was absorbing the shadow energy, you have a few years until it becomes that." She motioned towards the void entity. "By then, the war against Deathwing will have undoubtedly come to an end, unless the Legion finds a way to accelerate the darkening. You are not strong enough to free the construct. Even holding itself back, it will tear you apart long before you can destroy its bonds. You'll need to find people who have stood up to something like it before."

My mind came to a conclusion quickly. "The Kingslayers."

Nalestrasza nodded. "Yes, the Kingslayers. They've fought one of these before, it was the only one the Legion had captured, and even then they didn't know their true potential. The Kingslayers destroyed the construct's darkened form and it almost instantly became the void creature. Even fighting and gathering energy for the first not even two minutes of its life, it nearly destroyed them, and it didn't live longer than that. Now, think. If the Legion could keep something that powerful hidden for, say, days, weeks even, and then unleash it upon Azeroth, well, you don't need to be told the implications of that."

My blood ran cold. "How do you know all this? I sure as hells don't!"

"Selriona, you're magical, and came in contact with the construct's mind. You felt how powerful its telepathy was. Is it so absurd that you were given some additional information to sort out in your dreams?"

I shook my head as understanding dawned upon me. "No, it isn't. So, what you're saying is that I need to find a way to get the Kingslayers to trust me and have them contain that shadow construct before it can kill us all."

Nalestrasza nodded. "Correct. Oh, and another thing." The dream started to fade. I felt 'out of it'. "The construct is called a Naaru." I woke up.

Review, let me know what you think.

A note about the darkened Naaru. My theory is that if a Naaru loses enough energy, either through draining, combat, or 'nullification' (Being fed shadow energy, akin to adding a negative to a positive number), it will become a darkened state and passively cause destruction, but retain its free will and try to slow itself down. My theory is that if the darkened Naaru continues to be fed shadow energy, continue to expend its own energy on combat (Adding a negative to a negative), or has its form destroyed it will become the void god thing M'uru did and basically lay the smackdown on everything.

From what I've gathered, darkened Naaru themselves are exceedingly rare, so such 'void gods' would be even rarer, and M'uru was the first darkened Naaru the legion could observe. My theory also goes on that Naaru that haven't gone so far as to become void gods regenerate over time, slowly returning even from the deepest darkening to full light. Naturally, once the Legion saw how powerful a destroyed Dark Naaru becomes, they desired to capture one and force the transformation, but don't want to destroy its form since that would be, well, impossible, seeing as how the Dark Naaru would likely have little inhibitions about attacking demons.